This is an age of surprises and breakthroughs—just when you think you know how the world works, things happen to overturn our presumptions.

Let me show you two examples:

The United States celebrates Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving. It is a time when online retailers and businesses compete to rake in customers and profits. In 2013, Americans spent 2.29 billion USD in a single day, topping the chart as the highest sales volume created online.

The great achievement, however, was dwarfed not too long after. Chinese company Alibaba created a record sales volume of 5.75 billion USD in a single day, a sum more than twice of what was achieved in the US.

In the forefront of science and technological advancements, an unlikely player has also recently joined the scene of space exploration, breaking the monopoly by US and Russia. I am talking about India.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched a Mars orbiter, which successfully entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014, making India the first nation to succeed on its first attempt, and ISRO the fourth space agency in the world as well as the first space agency in Asia to successfully reach Mars orbit.

It has become increasingly often for unexpected players to cut to the forefront of things, breaking boundaries and shattering preconceived notions.

Our time is witnessing change at an unprecedented pace. If you are still relying on your gut instincts developed about ten years ago, then your judgment in many things would be inaccurate. Apply those judgments to your business, and your career risks stagnating and even failing.

Developing your instincts is not difficult. The key is in consuming as much knowledge as possible—read, observe, and add value to yourself. You need to explore and be updated about the latest developments in all major industries, and network with people from all fields.

The revelation about the importance of “change” came to me while reading McKinsey Global Institute’s publication No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends. The book analyses the Trend Break era, and how our economics and business climate is undergoing radical changes.

This book empowered me to understand the current global market, and reminded me that I need to push through changes in my company to welcome the new era
The book by McKinsey posited four main trends that is disrupting the current market:

1.The Age of Urbanisation

The global urban population has been rising by an average of 65 million people annually during the past three decades. Nearly half of global GDP growth between 2010 and 2025 will come from 440 cities in emerging markets—95 percent of them small- and medium-size cities that many Western executives may not even have heard of. Yes, Beijing, Singapore, and Manila are familiar.

But what Brazil’s Santa Catarina state, halfway between São Paulo and the Uruguayan border? Or Tianjin, a city that lies around 120 kilometers southeast of Beijing? McKinsey estimated that by 2025, the GDP of Tianjin will be around $625 billion—approximately that of all of Sweden.

2.Accelerating Technological Change

The second disruptive force is the acceleration in the scope and scale of technology. Technology—from the printing press to the steam engine and the Internet—has always been a great force in overturning the status quo. The difference today is the extremely high presence of technology in our lives and the speed of change.

As fast as innovation has multiplied and spread in recent years, it is poised to change and grow at an exponential speed beyond the power of human intuition to anticipate.

3. Ageing labour force

The human population is getting older. Fertility is falling, and the world’s population is graying dramatically. While ageing has been evident in developed economies for some time—Japan and Russia have seen their populations decline over the past few years—the demographic deficit is now spreading to China and soon will reach Latin America. For the first time in human history, ageing could mean that the planet’s population will plateau in most of the world.

An older and smaller workforce will place a greater onus on productivity for driving growth and may cause us to rethink the economy’s potential. Caring for large numbers of elderly people will put severe pressure on government finances.

4. Trade, people, finance, and data: Greater global connections

The final disruptive force is the degree to which the world is much more connected through trade and through movements in capital, people, and information.

Asia is becoming the world’s largest trading region. The volume of trade between China and Africa rose from $9 billion in 2000 to $211 billion in 2012. Global capital flows expanded 25 times between 1980 and 2007. More than one billion people crossed borders in 2009, over five times the number in 1980. The links forged by technology have marched on uninterrupted and with increasing speed, ushering in a dynamic new phase of globalisation.

There is an urgent need to adjust to and accept these new realities. However, there is a powerful human tendency to want ignore obvious trends and stick to our old ways of operation—but this is precisely why huge corporations have repeatedly failed. Sitting back in denial to what is happening in the world will leave many of us highly vulnerable. Gaining a clear-eyed perspective on how to negotiate the changing landscape will help us prepare to succeed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]时代迎向颠覆 领导人不能不知的世界四大改变